Atheists - Check Mate!

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Last edited by Meow101 on 19 Jul 2010, 11:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

This thread is a joke.

You cannot prove a negative. You can only negate claims of a positive.

But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence...

~Kate

I could be mistaken, but I seem to remember ruveyn once posting some sort of mathematical proof of a negative.

Actually, it kind of is. Take for instance a USB drive I seem to have misplaced recently. I looked through my apartment quite thoroughly and failed to find any evidence that the missing thumb drive was there. This is, of course, evidence that the drive is actually absent from my apartment. Similarly, studies attempting to discern a connection between vaccines and autism have never found such a link, providing compelling evidence that there is no link. If there were, our careful searches would have found it.

Unless of course the connection between vaccines and autism is being covered up by a commercially-driven pro-vaccine medical establishment.

I'm not saying that it IS, and I'd never seriously advocate for the cessation of vaccination. But such issues DO crop up in the medical community from time to time.

Damn, I just can't beat that logic.

Dozens of independent sources, studies done in different countries by different organizations, are available. The relevant data are also published. You may feel free to examine it yourself. There is no discernible link between vaccines and autism. Not even a correlation, much less causation.

And yes, the medical establishment is pro-vaccine. Is that so damning, that they support what is probably the safest and most effective medical intervention ever developed?

Commercially driven? Were you not opposed to "socialized" healthcare? Would not the only logical inference be that you thus support commercially-driven medicine?

I would also love some examples from you as to a systematic cover-up perpetrated by the medical community. You claim such issues crop up from time to time, so surely you will find no difficulty in furnishing us with a few examples of this behavior.

Could just be a primitivist who wants to reject all technology and science.

Commercially driven, as in a greed-motivated scam as opposed to providing a genuine, beneficial service. And as I recall, the vaccine scare centered on varicella vaccine. My kids have had all their shots EXCEPT varicella, and that was specifically in response to the fears and the information at the time. As our children approach the age when chickenpox becomes more of a legit concern (and as required for daycare/school/etc.) we'll add that vaccine to the usual round.

So for an actual example, what about the "findings" against the varicella? Data that demonstrated that there was a connection in the first place? Why did the medical community (whatever journal it was) even bother with a retraction of the findings in favor of a connection between the varicella vaccine and autism? Hmmm... Could it POSSIBLY be that because they investigated and found that there really WASN'T a connection? Personally, I side with that view, just in case you're wondering how I could seriously debate the efficacy of vaccines as well as their necessity.

Or COULD it be that a bunch of famous people with autistic children found out the hard way what many other parents have long suspected, that there IS some connection between vaccines and autism, especially considering the timing of vaccines and when the earliest signs of autism appear. It's a neat little coincidence, isn't it? So why WOULDN'T pharmaceutical manufacturers be interested in shutting these people up by providing "research" that "clearly" shows their claims to be false? Think about all the time and money spent in preparing all those chickenpox vaccines that are just going to get thrown in the garbage. If the pharms aren't making any money, they aren't going to pay researchers to develop new drugs.

I mean, SURE, the research is freely available. They WANT you to see what they've doctored up in support of their claims that the new vaccine is completely harmless.

lol

Whatever.

A FEW things?




We know. You started it, dead giveaway.

I agree with Orwell. There are billions of things that we don't have evidence for the existence of, so we don't believe they exist. I mean, are you agnostic to fairies? Unicorns? Frogmen? etc? No, and the reason being the lack of evidence of them despite the efforts taken to learn more about the world.

That's IT! I have finally figured you out. You aren't a conservative Christian, but rather you are an atheist trying to discredit conservative Christianity by association. Wow, perfect, and I wouldn't have even thought of it except by the fact that you apparently think this way.

I don't believe there is a link between autism and vaccines. It doesn't make sense, for one thing, and for another, there has been absolutely no proof. However, it *is* possible that such evidence exists but we haven't found it yet. Absent such evidence, and given that it makes no sense, I don't believe there is a link, and I certainly would NEVER advocate for not vaccinating without such proof, but it is certainly *possible* that evidence *could* be found in the future.

Similarly, I do not worship a deity, or try to restrict people's freedom based on some rule-book one allegedly wrote, without adequate evidence, but neither do I discount the possibility that some form of supreme being *could* exist (of course that doesn't necessarily mean the christian god...)

~Kate

That so-called "scam" has saved hundreds of millions of lives. But you oppose socialized medicine, correct? If you want medicine administered by private corporations, do you then fault them for being interested in profit? I dunno, that kind of stance just seems myopically hypocritical.


You recall incorrectly. In 1998 Dr. Andrew Wakefield (and a number of coauthors, most of whom have since requested that their contributions be retracted) published a paper in the Lancet alleging a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Later nut jobs (Jenny McCarthy et al) claimed the cause was the trace quantities of ethyl mercury used in a vaccine preservative. Both claims have been soundly refuted.

The only controversy surrounding the varicella vaccine was whether it is necessary to vaccinate for such a mild illness.


I'm sorry, I will need you to provide something that's actually coherent if I'm going to respond. This paragraph just makes no sense. Are you saying there is or is not a connection?


For one thing, several of the studies were carried out by governmental agencies in other countries that really don't give a damn about profits for the pharmaceutical industry. That's the wonderful thing about science: independence, openness, and reproducibility in all results.


So you posit a massive international conspiracy to cover up the harmful effects of the chickenpox vaccine? That a large number of studies by multiple independent groups were all coordinated and used deliberately falsified data? For what motive would they go to such great lengths? If they just want to scam people and get money, they can do it a lot easier by following the homeopath's example.